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Introduction Background: Heat treatment was used in previous studies as an ‘accelerated ageing’ and showed so far good results on different softwood with respect to the darker color, fragile behavior and the improved stability against humidity changes. Our objective: Determine the effect of heat treatment on creep behavior of hardwood, such as Poplar wood, in transverse direction (literature is mainly focused on longitudinal direction). These choices were motivated by our previous work on panel paintings (COST IE0601 Florence 2007). Host institute & Funding: This study was conducted in Kyoto University thanks to the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS).

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Discussion Influence of moisture content in service (even constant mc%) on creep behavior of both treated and untreated poplar. Chemical modification of wood during heat treatment and its effects on creep properties. Discussion about post treatment methods for analyzing the results (Time response spectrum, Approximate Complex Plane…). Special Acknowledgements: To Miyuki MATSUO and Misao YOKOYAMA from RISH (Kyoto University) for the discussions about heat treatment. Thanks to Luca UZIELLI for providing the material of this study, and Bertrand MARCON for preparing and deliver it...